Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Last night, I promised that I'd reveal how Batman escaped from a deadly deathtrap that he would not survive unless he shot a floor.

Panels from "The Deadly Web of the Crime Exchange!" in Detective Comics #453 (November 1975), script by David Vern, pencils by Ernie Chan, inks and letters by Mike Royer

But The Batman has swore...sworn?...sweared?...swearengended?...to never use a gun! Especially not against an innocent civilian floor. So, he dedices to use the gun to throw it at the Crime Exchange's kick-ass Samsung JS9500 Series 88"-Class 4K SUHD Smart 3D Curved LED-TV! (I'm just throwing that in there so Samsung will send me one for mentioning them). Fact!: shattering a viewscreen shorts out all the electricity in a room and plunges the place into total darkness! Well, that works well!

Na na na na na na na na BLACKOUT! The Batman whips out his glown-in-the-dark sound effect cards and beats the stuffing outta those crooks! Then, he escapes! But how?!? How did the Batman escape, the story pauses to ask us?

Well, I'm guessing, story, that because he's the Gosh-Darn Batman, he's strong and fast and clever enough to slip out of the room and actually already be sitting in the Batmobile logging his mileage on MileIQ and sipping his Sonic Creamery Milkshake because that's what Batman does, right? Except, just as the story lept...leaped?...leporidaed?...to a huge conclusion in deciding Batman couldn't actually harmlessly shoot a floor, here's how Batman escaped. The clues are all there if you know where to look (specifically, in the panels I've posted above). Explain it to Gordon just like he was Dr,. Watson, Batman!

Oooookay. That was a clever trick but kind of complicated, and, as I would like to remind you, one Batman could have avoided simply by firing a gun into the floor. But, shooting the floor would make him no better than the criminals themselves or possibly some drunk guys at a Texas Home Depot. I think we've all learned the lesson this story can teach us: